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To Herr Hitler, from Mahatma Gandhi (letter)

September 1st 1939 marks the beginning of the 2nd World War, as Adolf Hitler invades Poland. Just a month before peacenik Mahatma Gandhi felt the need to send this rather unorthodox letter to monster Adolf, which begins with the salutation “Dear friend” and ends with the uncompromising words “I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you. I remain, your sincere friend…” – diplomacy or just plain naivety and meekness on behalf of the endearing pacifist Mahatma? In any case, the letter never reached dear Adolf due to an intervention by the Indian government:

Friends have been urging me to write to you for the sake of humanity. But I have resisted their request, because of the feeling that any letter from me would be an impertinence. Something tells me that I must not calculate and that I must make my appeal for whatever it may be worth.

It is quite clear that you are today the one person in the world who can prevent a war which may reduce humanity to a savage state. Must you pay that price for an object however worthy it may appear to you to be? Will you listen to the appeal of one who has deliberately shunned the method of war not without considerable success? Any way I anticipate your forgiveness, if I have erred in writing to you.

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